Classical Wisdom Litterae - April 2019

she has, quite arbitrarily, decided to execute Cassandra too: “He – as you see him; she first, like the dying swan, sang her death-song, and now lies in her lover’s clasp. Brought as a variant to the pleasure of my bed, she lends an added relish now to victory.” This is the key question repeatedly raised in the Agamemnon: ‘What is justice’? We can comprehend that Clytemnestra is just in killing Agamemnon, but not Cassandra. Likewise she is unjust in marrying Aegisthus, as this will disinherit her son, Orestes. Aegisthus goes on to show a further injustice when he tries to kill the Chorus, only to be stopped by Clytemnestra: “Stop, stop, Aegisthus, dearest! No more violence!” Whatever the justice of the piece, there is no doubt the figure of Agamemnon lying dead in the bath; cuckolded, outsmarted, impious, naked and helpless is an entirely pathetic and unheroic end for the victorious commander of the Trojan War. Did You Know? The myth of the Cursed House of Atreus doesn’t stop there. After Clytemnestra murdered her husband, her son, Orestes, murdered her. Orestes was then haunted by the ‘furies‘ which chased him all the way to the court of Athena. There the goddess of wisdom passed judgement, exonerated Orestes, and finally brought the twisted tale to an end.

Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, by Frederic Leighton, 1869

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